A 17-meter-long said Sunday, making it the third whale that beached itself on the Indonesian island in just a little over a week. 

The male sperm whale was found stranded on Yeh Leh beach in west Bali’s Jembrana district Saturday afternoon. 

“We are currently trying to pull the carcass to the shore to make it easier for the necropsy test and we will bury it after the test is concluded,” Permana Yudiarso, a local marine and fisheries official, told AFP Sunday. 

This is the third whale that has beached itself in Bali, a popular tourist destination for, in April alone. 

On Wednesday, an 18-meter-long male sperm whale was stranded in Klungkung district, on Bali’s eastern coast. 

Before that, a Bryde’s whale weighing more than two tons and at least 11 meters long was found stranded on a beach in Tabanan on April 1 — its carcass already rotted when discovered by locals.  

Yudiarso told AFP that their initial suspicion is that the sperm whale found Saturday also died of sickness, “just like the whale found stranded a few days ago.” 

“The body looked skinny and sickly,” he said. 

Yudiarso said it would take at least three weeks for the necropsy test to be concluded but forensic experts found some bleeding in the whale’s lungs and its colon was filled with fluids. 

Police have cordoned off the location to prevent people from stealing the mammal’s meat or body parts. 

In 2018, a sperm whale was found dead in Indonesia with more than 100 plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach, raising concerns about the Southeast Asian archipelago’s massive marine rubbish problem. 

Indonesia is the world’s second-biggest contributor to marine debris after China.
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Qamar Ali Haji has been using skin-lightening products for four years. Initially she liked the change in her appearance but now the exposure to the chemicals in the products is taking a toll. She says she regrets it.

“I can’t sit too long in the school, I cannot bear the heat, my cheeks turn red, and I cannot go into the kitchen,” Haji said. “I cannot bear the slightest heat, I become boiled, there are ulcers on my legs, redness all over.”

The 19-year-old student is one of a growing number of women in Somalia who use the skin-lightening products.

Locally known as “qasqas” or “mixture,” the term reflects the combination of various skin-whitening products. Health advocates say using these products can cause dangerous side effects and lead to physical and mental health problems.

Somali officials and activists said the country’s political upheavals and the war on the al-Shabab militant group are overshadowing socially driven health dangers like skin-whitening. Due to a lack of awareness, some people don’t realize how dangerous these products can be.

The issue has attracted the attention of Amira Adawe, a leading activist with a master’s degree in public health from Minnesota. Adawe has traveled to the Horn of Africa region multiple times in recent years as part of her research into the practice of skin-whitening.

She is the founder of Beautywell, an organization that has been addressing this issue in the United States.

Adawe said the skin-lightening products from Kenya and Somalia that she tested contained high levels of toxic chemicals like mercury, hydroquinone and lead.

Mercury, hydroquinone, steroids and lead are the four main chemicals found in skin-whitening products, according to Adawe. Mercury is a toxic heavy metal. Women who use skin-lightning products that contain mercury, can suffer neurological side effects, and develop depression and anxiety, Adawe added.

“We had a Somali woman in the state of Minnesota who actually lost her vision because of (the) neurological impact that came from the use of skin-lighting products containing mercury,” she told Women’s Square, a new VOA Somali program.

“Some people also develop diabetics because medically, skin-lightning products impact hormones … which impacts the insulin in our body,” she said.

Other health risks include hypertension, kidney problems, skin sensitivity and skin cancer as product users cannot tolerate any sunlight, Adawe said.

“Steroids can give them a lot of skin tenderness,” she added.

There’s also the possibility of a mother passing the toxicity to her baby if she is breastfeeding.

Skin-whitening is multibillion-dollar industry that targets women around the globe. Adawe says the practice is especially high in countries where regulations on toxic products are weak or nonexistent, like Somalia.

According to Adawe many people in Somalia are using skin-whitening products.

“I have done several focus group sessions, key informant interviews and surveyed two universities,” she said. “In all these more than 140 women, girls and some men participated, and all of the women and girls were using. Some of the men were using.”

The focus groups and interviews took place in Mogadishu and Hargeisa.

“Women that I interviewed … in Somalia had kidney problems and other health issues like very (a) bad smell of fish odor, skin redness, skin ulcers, blue skin pigmentation, headache, severe wound healing problems and endocrinological problems,” she said.

“All of these (health issues) are associated with the use of mercury, hydroquinone and steroids in skin-lightening products.”

Adawe shared her work with Somali officials and explained the health issues associated with exposure to the toxic ingredients in skin-lightening products.

In Mogadishu she met female parliamentarians who promised to support legislation to regulate skin-lightening products with toxic chemicals. She also has been communicating with the Somali ministry of health to increase awareness of the problem and find strategies for regulating the toxic products.

Interim manager of the National Medicine Regulatory Authority at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Farah Mohamed Sharawe was one of the officials who met Adawe last month. He admits the government has not researched skin-whitening products.

“The first action of my office is to register the importation of these medications, find out who is bringing [them] in, and give them license. The other action is widespread awareness about the harmful impacts of these medications. [To] prevent expanding of skin-whitening problems,” he said.

Sharawe said the ministry agreed with Adawe on the need for research about the cosmetics coming into Somali and the amount of toxicity, if any, the products may contain.

“Conduct research into the compounds, check the level of mercury and other harmful elements, and then share … [the] data with the public,” he said. “This needs legislation, the Medicine and Food Safety Bill, which the Cabinet has passed. That legislation is important.”

While the Medicine and Food Safety Bill has Cabinet approval, it won’t become law until Parliament approves it.

Dr. Mamunur Rahman Malik, the World Health Organization representative for Somalia, also met Adawe.

“These are poisons which should never be allowed to come in. She is using science to understand the scope of this problem and address these problems which are harmful to public health. She is doing it without any fear,” he said.

Malik said WHO is planning to set up a laboratory for the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment to test and identify contaminated products.

“Within (the) next few months we will help them to have the ability to test these cosmetic products, food and any other imported products which pose (a) risk to (the) health of the population,” he said.

Personal mission

The practice of whitening skin is personal to Adawe. She has faced discrimination because of her own dark skin color.

“At a very young age I had a little experience of colorism; as you know colorism, it’s a cultural thing that happens all over the world because of skin color discrimination especially in countries that went through colonization and slavery,” Adawe said.

“So at very young age I remember people always commenting on my skin color and so that stayed with me but also I have seen when I was growing up in Somalia and also growing up in the United States especially in Minnesota, many individuals that are using these products, whether it’s relatives or friends or people that I came to know using these products and externally I could see how it was impacting their skin color.”

She said she hopes to see the Somali government ban the toxic ingredients like mercury, lead and other chemicals found in some skin-lightening products and establish a regulatory system for the drugs and cosmetics.

Harun Maruf contributed to this report.
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During the coronavirus pandemic, telemedicine became a virtual phenomenon. As people remained in their homes during the pandemic, they began chatting with their doctors over the phone or video platforms on subjects such as chronic disease management, ongoing medical support, mental health issues and specialty care.

To reach their patients, many health professionals had to figure out quickly how to set up their first online systems for telemedicine, also known as telehealth.

“Doctors hadn’t provided it as an option previously because the infrastructure and technology wasn’t widely available,” said Dr. Shira Fischer, a physician policy researcher at the RAND Corp., which has conducted surveys asking Americans whether they use telehealth.

Fisher noted that in a February 2019 survey, less than 4% of the respondents said they used video telehealth. But two years later during the pandemic, that number had skyrocketed to 45%.

“I think telehealth is great,” said Michael Wu, a restaurant manager who lives in Alexandria, Virginia. “When I have a cold or the flu, I don’t have to take time off work to go to the doctor’s office for an exam, and maybe to get medication. It’s easier for me to have a video appointment with my doctor using my cellphone.”

Here to stay

Many health professionals think telemedicine is here to stay.

“Telehealth can be really useful,” Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., president of the American Medical Association, told VOA. “If you’re talking to a patient with diabetes, for instance, and you ask them about their diet, they can point their camera phone at the food in their refrigerator and show you what they eat.”

According to a 2021 AMA survey of doctors, a majority of physicians enthusiastically embraced telehealth and expected to use it more often. Some 85% of them said they were using telehealth to care for their patients.

Over the last two years, “we have seen telemedicine has seamlessly integrated into health care,” said Resneck.

This also includes private health insurance companies and Medicare (a U.S. government national insurance program) “suddenly covering the cost of telehealth,” which hadn’t been the case before, he said.

Patients, providers save time

Nevertheless, some patients remain reluctant to give up the person-to-person contact that comes with a traditional visit to a doctor’s office.

“I’m not opposed to it, but I’m wary about using it for my child,” said Erin Thompson, a stay-at-home mom who lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

“When my daughter is sick, I feel more comfortable bringing her to see the doctor in person, instead of her talking to him on a video screen.”

Despite such reservations, telehealth offers a host of benefits, such as increasing patients’ access to health care and helping health care providers determine whether a patient needs additional treatment in person. Telehealth can also help reduce expensive and unnecessary trips to the emergency room.

“Telehealth is definitely gaining traction in Lubbock, Texas,” said Dr. Ariel Santos, director of the telemedicine program at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. “Because of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a more than a 200% increase in telemedicine within our organization.”

Santos, who is also the vice chair of the department of surgery at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, thinks telehealth is a win-win for doctors and their patients.

“Many follow-up appointments with patients after surgery could be done through a video conference rather than an office visit,” he told VOA, adding that “telemedicine also reduces unnecessary travel for both the health provider and patient and improves access to health care, especially in rural areas.”

Dr. Karen Rheuban, a pediatric cardiologist and pioneer in the telehealth field, agrees. She is the director of the Karen S. Rheuban Center for Telehealth at the University of Virginia, which was named after her in 2016 for her significant contributions to the field of telemedicine. They include telehealth services in rural and underserved areas of Virginia and lifesaving care for stroke victims.

“Patients love telemedicine,” she said, “and it’s convenient for them to receive care in their homes.”

Rheuban said whether it’s enabling physicians to provide an emergency service, such as prescribing clot-busting medication for a stroke, or helping patients manage a chronic condition such as heart disease, telemedicine has grown and can save lives around the world.

Telemedicine has also revolutionized behavioral health.

“It is an incredibly useful tool,” said Terry Rabinowitz, medical director of the psychiatric consultation service at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

“Some patients have a lot easier time showing up for telemedicine encounters,” said Rabinowitz, who has been doing telepsychiatry for 20 years. “It’s very useful for patients with psychiatric illnesses like depression, schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders because they may be averse to seeing someone face-to-face or even putting on their clothes to come for a visit.”

Accessibility, privacy concerns

Telehealth can have its challenges, however.

“Some people don’t have good internet access or don’t know how to use it. And some people are worried about their privacy,” said Fischer at the RAND Corp. Rabinowitz said broadband internet needs to be increased in underserved and rural areas.

Santos at Texas Tech said while some doctors and patients may be hesitant to use telehealth, it can “make it quicker and easier for patients to be seen by a physician.”

Telehealth won’t completely take over in-office visits, Santos said.

“Obviously, some health issues require the patient to be seen in person by a doctor,” he said. “And sometimes it may be difficult for me to express my empathy and concern through an online connection.”

Still, he said, telehealth will become more prominent in the future, and “there could even be public libraries with telemedicine kiosks.”
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With the whir of a mower under a clear blue sky, Senegalese researchers have begun harvesting a crop of experimental homegrown wheat, the latest step in a yearslong effort to reduce reliance on imports.

The second-most consumed cereal after rice, wheat is an important staple in the bread-loving West African nation.

But Senegal, like many of its neighbors, depends entirely on foreign supplies.

It imports 800,000 metric tons of the grain per year.

Its tropical climate is not naturally suited to wheat, but domestic trials have been underway for years.

Supply chain problems, rising grain prices and inflation caused by the war in Ukraine have added urgency to the country’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency.

Four varieties

Since late last week, researchers from the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research, a public research institute, have been harvesting four varieties of wheat on a demonstration plot in Sangalkam, 35 kilometers from the capital Dakar.

Three of the varieties are Egyptian and the fourth was developed by the institute.

It operates five demonstration plots in total, two near Dakar and three in the Senegal River Valley, and has tested hundreds of wheat varieties, Amadou Tidiane Sall, one of the researchers, told AFP.

Not all thrive

Many have proved unsuitable.

The Sangalkam crop, one of several successful experiments by the institute, was sown in early January and matured in three months during Senegal’s cold season.

Agriculture Minister Aly Ngouille Ndiaye visited the plot earlier this month.

He said he had requested Egyptian seeds on a visit to the North African country for the United Nations’ COP27 climate conference in November.

“We have significant potential,” the minister said during his visit, promising the government would work with the private sector to expand trial plots.

He acknowledged that a lack of adequate water for irrigation posed a significant challenge.

Not everyone is convinced that wheat can be grown at scale in Senegal.

Amadou Gaye, the president of the National Federation of Bakers of Senegal, who represents about 2,500 bakeries across the country, told AFP he would prefer to see resources dedicated to producing local cereals such as millet, maize and sorghum.
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A growing number of state legislatures are considering bans on cosmetics and other consumer products that contain a group of synthetic, potentially harmful chemicals known as PFAS.

In Vermont, the state Senate gave final approval this week to legislation that would prohibit manufacturers and suppliers from selling or distributing any cosmetics or menstrual products in the state that have perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, as well as a number of other chemicals.

The products include shampoo, makeup, deodorant, sunscreen, hair dyes and more, said state Sen. Terry Williams, a Republican, and member of the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare.

“Many known toxic chemicals are used in or found as contaminants in personal care products, including PFAS, lead and formaldehyde,” Williams said in reporting the bill to Senate colleagues.

California, Colorado and Maryland passed similar restrictions on cosmetics that go into effect in 2025. Other proposals are under consideration in Washington and Oregon while bills have also been introduced in Illinois, Rhode Island and Georgia.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, studies have linked PFAS exposure to increased cancer risk, developmental delays in children, damage to organs such as the liver and thyroid, increased cholesterol levels and reduced immune functions, especially among young children.

Like in Colorado and California, the proposed Vermont crackdown on PFAS — known as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment — goes beyond cosmetics. The bill, which now must be considered by the Vermont House, would extend the ban to apparel, including outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions, athletic turf, clothing, ski wax and textiles, including upholstery, draperies, towels and bedding that intentionally contain PFAS. The bill has been referred to a House committee and the chairwoman said Friday that she’s not sure if the panel will get to it this session. The legislation gives various timelines for the phaseouts.

“We must stop importing dangerous chemicals like PFAS into our state so we can prevent the harms they are causing up and down the supply chain — from their production and use to their disposal,” Lauren Hierl, executive director of Vermont Conservation Voters, said in a statement.

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first federal limits on the chemicals in drinking water, saying the protection will save thousands of lives and prevent serious illnesses, including cancer. The chemicals had been used since the 1940s in consumer products and industry, including in nonstick pans, food packaging and firefighting foam. Their use is now mostly phased out in the U.S., but some still remain. Pressure is also growing to remove PFAS from food packaging.

A study by University of Notre Dame researchers released in 2021 found that more than half the cosmetics sold in the United States and Canada were awash with a toxic industrial compound associated with serious health conditions.

Researchers tested more than 230 commonly used cosmetics and found that 56% of foundations and eye products, 48% of lip products and 47% of mascaras contained fluorine — an indicator of PFAS.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says on its website that there have been few studies of the presence of PFAS in cosmetics, and the ones published found the concentration is at very low levels.

The Personal Care Products Council, which represents the cosmetics industry, says in 2020 it supported California legislation to phase out certain ingredients, including 13 PFAS in cosmetics, and identical legislative language in Maryland the following year. The group called for states to pass uniform laws to avoid confusion.

As for bans on apparel containing the chemicals, the American Apparel & Footwear Association supports the bill passed unanimously in the Vermont Senate and appreciates that amendments were made to align with phase-out timelines in existing PFAS restrictions in California and New York, said Chelsea Murtha, AAFA’s director of sustainability, in a statement.

The Outdoor Industry Association, based on Colorado, said overall it supports the Vermont bill, also noted the current version more closely matches the timeline for compliance with California’s.

“We are also appreciative of the exemption for outdoor apparel severe wet conditions until 2028, as our industry is diligently working to move toward non-regrettable alternatives that will not compromise consumer safety or the quality of the product,” said association President Kent Ebersole in a statement.
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Dust off your eclipse glasses: It’s only a year until a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America. 

On April 8, 2024, the moon will cast its shadow across a stretch of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, plunging millions of people into midday darkness. 

It’s been less than six years since a total solar eclipse cut across the U.S., from coast to coast. That was on August 21, 2017. 

If you miss next year’s spectacle, you’ll have to wait 20 years until the next one hits the U.S. But that total eclipse will be visible only in Montana and the Dakotas. 

Here’s what to know to get ready for the 2024 show: 

Where can I see it? 

Next year’s eclipse will slice a diagonal line across North America on April 8, which falls on a Monday. 

It will start in the Pacific and first reach land over Mexico around 11:07 a.m. local time, NASA predicts. Then, it’ll cross over into Texas and move across parts of the Midwest and Northeast in the afternoon. 

All in all, it will hit parts of 13 U.S. states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Cities in its path include Dallas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Indianapolis; Cleveland and Buffalo, New York. 

Parts of Canada, including Quebec and Newfoundland, will also get a glimpse before the eclipse heads out to sea in the early evening. 

A total eclipse will be visible within a 115-mile-wide swath — the path of totality. Outside that path, you can still see a partial solar eclipse, where the moon takes a bite out of the sun and turns it into a crescent shape. 

Total eclipses happen about every 18 months, but a lot of times they cross over remote areas where few people see them. 

What happens during an eclipse? 

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, blocking the sun’s light from reaching us. 

Even though the moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, it’s also about 400 times closer to Earth, said University of Colorado astronomer Doug Duncan. So when the orbits line up just right, the little moon can block out the whole sun. Those who are standing in the right spots will experience totality: when the moon casts its shadow over the landscape. 

“In just seconds, you go from bright, bright daylight to like the middle of the night,” said Debby Brown, who saw her first total eclipse in 2017 with Duncan in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. 

“The stars are out. All of a sudden, all the animals are quiet,” said Brown, of Arlington, Virginia. 

During the 2024 eclipse, totality will stretch to around four and a half minutes — almost twice as long as in 2017.

What’s the best spot? 

To catch the full eclipse experience, planning ahead is key, Duncan said. Weather could be a big factor since the eclipse is coming in the spring, when conditions are unpredictable. That’s why Duncan selected Texas for his eclipse tour next year, where the odds of clear skies are better. 

Your choice also depends on what kind of experience you’re looking for, said Bob Baer, who’s coordinating eclipse plans at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. 

Carbondale — in the crossroads of both the 2017 and 2024 eclipse paths — will hold a viewing event at the school’s stadium again. It’s a big group experience, Baer said: “The last 20 minutes before totality, the stadium gets as loud as a football game.” 

But you can find events of all different flavors planned along the eclipse path: luxury cruises in Mexico, music festivals in Texas, farm camping in Arkansas, planetarium visits in upstate New York. 

“The goal, at the end of the day, is to get as many people outside as possible, looking up during totality,” said Dan Schneiderman, who is helping the Rochester Museum and Science Center plan events.  

You’ll want to grab eclipse glasses to see the partial phases before and after totality, Schneiderman added. Looking at the partially covered sun without protection can cause serious eye damage. 

Brown and her husband are planning to join Duncan’s eclipse tour in Austin. Her first eclipse experience flew by. 

“I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy this even longer,” Brown said. “To be able to just lean into the moment.” 

What other eclipses are coming up?

The U.S. will get some eclipse action ahead of the big event in 2024. There will be an annular eclipse — when the sun isn’t completely covered but appears like a ring of fire in the sky — later this year, on October 14. 

The path of that eclipse will cross from Oregon down through California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. 

Later this month, there will be a rare hybrid eclipse, which switches between a total and an annular eclipse at different points along its path. But few people will see it. The April 20 eclipse is mostly over the Indian Ocean and crosses over only a few slivers of Australia and Southeast Asia. 

With a 20-year gap until the next total solar eclipse in the U.S., Duncan says it will be worth it to be in the path of totality next year. He’s witnessed 12 total eclipses so far. 

Seeing a partial eclipse — even if it’s 90% covered — means “you missed all the good stuff,” he said.
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Cyclone Freddy killed hundreds of people in February and March as it pummeled Madagascar, Malawi, and Mozambique. While the long-running storm’s victims were mostly in Malawi, floodwaters in Mozambique have created a fresh threat there from cholera. Cases have nearly doubled in one week to 19,000 amid a shortage of facilities, many of which were badly damaged by the cyclone, especially in the worst-hit province of Zambezia.

The neighborhood of Icidua, on the outskirts of Quelimane city in Mozambique’s central Zambezia province, has reported the highest number of cholera cases.

Most here lived in flimsy huts made of mud or bamboo that were flattened by the cyclone’s up to 215 kilometer per hour winds.

The local health center’s building is no longer stable, so doctors and nurses work outside under the shade of trees.

Mothers lined up patiently this week with their children for cholera treatment in one of the few wards that survived the storm.

The clinic’s director José da Costa Silva says the staff are working at high risk as the roof could collapse at any minute.

“Cholera cases are increasing, and the health center does not have the capacity to treat everybody. Most patients are referred to the provincial hospital,” he said.

The outbreak is not confined to Quelimane city.

The U.N. says more than 19,000 cases have been confirmed across eight of Mozambique’s 10 provinces.

The World Health Organization’s office has called it the worst cholera outbreak in Mozambique for 20 years.

At Quelimane Provincial Hospital, the director general of Mozambique’s National Health Institute this week addressed health workers in a packed room under a torn roof with two gaping holes.

Eduardo Sam Gudo Jr. tells the workers the cholera outbreak is getting more serious by the day.

Confirmed cases in Quelimane district alone have reached about 600 a day, he says, but the real number could be as high as 1,000.

“The disease is not localized to one neighborhood, it’s everywhere,” he said.” It can only be fought with a local chlorine water treatment product called ‘Certeza,’ but supplies are stretched and there aren’t enough people to distribute the bottles.”

Every day, volunteers collect crates of Certeza from outside the hospital and drive to neighborhoods like Icidua, where they walk from house to house, distributing bottles.

Each one should last a family for a week, but demand is massively outstripping supply as the cholera spreads.

For many Mozambicans still recovering in the cyclone’s wake, cholera is just one of many problems.

Outside the village of Nicoadala, about 300 people live in a makeshift camp of tarpaulin huts on a road next to a flooded field.

Their villages and fields are still under water, forcing them to fish in flooded rice paddies to survive.

Sixty-four-year-old Joaquina Bissane says she had to reach the camp by canoe after her village was submerged.

“Cholera is less of a problem here than malaria, as the damp and heat has turned these flatlands into a breeding ground for mosquitoes,” she said. They have received no support from the government, so they are supporting each other.

The World Food Program estimates the cyclone’s floodwaters destroyed 215,000 hectares of crops in Mozambique.

Seventy-year-old farmer Inácio Abdala says his family’s home and fields were among those destroyed.

He says they eat one day and don’t eat the next as they lost everything in the floods. Even the schools are flooded, so their children can’t go to school.

Even after the floods subside, saltwater brought inland by the cyclone may have damaged much of the soil.

Freddy hit just before the main harvest and officials say it will take months, or even years, for farmlands to fully recover — long after they hope to bring the cholera outbreak under control.
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Life on our planet faced a stern test during the Cryogenian Period that lasted from 720 million to 635 million years ago when Earth twice was frozen over with runaway glaciation and looked from space like a shimmering white snowball.

Life somehow managed to survive during this time called “Snowball Earth,” and a new study offers a deeper understanding as to why.

Fossils identified as seaweed unearthed in black shale in central China’s Hubei Province indicate that habitable marine environments were more widespread at the time than previously known, scientists said Tuesday. The findings support the idea that it was more of a “Slushball Earth” where the earliest forms of complex life — basic multicellular organisms — endured even at mid-latitudes previously thought to have been frozen solid.

The fossils date from the second of the two times during the Cryogenian Period when massive ice sheets stretched from the poles toward the equator. This interval, called the Marinoan Ice Age, lasted from about 651 million to 635 million years ago.

“The key finding of this study is that open-water — ice-free — conditions existed in mid-latitude oceanic regions during the waning stage of the Marinoan Ice Age,” said China University of Geosciences geobiologist Huyue Song, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature Communications.

“Our study shows that, at least near the end of the Marinoan ‘Snowball Earth’ event, habitable areas extended to mid-latitude oceans, much larger than previously thought. Previous research argued that such habitable areas, at best, only existed in tropical oceans. More extensive areas of habitable oceans better explain where and how complex organisms such as multicellular seaweed survived,” Song added.

The findings demonstrate that the world’s oceans were not completely frozen and that habitable refuges existed where multicellular eukaryotic organisms — the domain of life including plants, animals, fungi and certain mostly single-celled organisms called protists — could survive, Song said.

Earth formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. The first single-celled organisms arose sometime during roughly the first billion years of the planet’s existence. Multicellular organisms arrived later, perhaps 2 billion years ago. But it was only in the aftermath of the Cryogenian that warmer conditions returned, paving the way for a rapid expansion of different life forms about 540 million years ago.

Scientists are trying to better understand the onset of “Snowball Earth.” They believe a greatly reduced amount of the sun’s warmth reached the planet’s surface as solar radiation bounced off the white ice sheets.

“It is widely believed that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels plummeted just prior to these events, causing the polar ice caps to expand and hence more solar radiation reflected back to space and the polar ice caps expanded further. And the Earth spiraled into Snowball Earth conditions,” Virginia Tech geobiologist and study co-author Shuhai Xiao said.

Seaweed and fossils of some other multicellular organisms were identified in the black shale. This seaweed — a rudimentary plant — was a photosynthetic organism living on the seafloor in a shallow marine environment lit by sunlight.

“The fossils were preserved as compressed sheets of organic carbon,” China University of Geosciences paleontologist and study co-author Qin Ye said.

Multicellular organisms including red algae, green algae and fungi emerged before the Cryogenian and survived “Snowball Earth.”

The Cryogenian freeze was much worse than the most recent Ice Age that humans survived, ending roughly 10,000 years ago.

“Compared to the most recent Ice Age, glacier coverage was much more extensive and, more importantly, much of the ocean was frozen,” Xiao said.

“It is fair to say that the ‘Snowball Earth’ events were significant challenges to life on Earth,” Xiao added. “It is conceivable that these ‘Snowball Earth’ events could have driven major extinctions, but apparently life, including complex eukaryotic organisms, managed to survive, attesting to the resilience of the biosphere.”
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